Sorry I missed you last night in the chat room. You need to get your spring compressor to catch the retainer in a way that it just misses the keepers. Or, take a small socket and place over the valve stem and tap on the retainer until it breaks loose. It's probably just a buildup of oil over the years that has "shallaqued" the retainer to the keepers causing them to stick together. Another thing that might help is to soak them down with
PB Blaster a few hours before disassembly. You can get that from Auto Zone.
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